


Spring of Camelot

by Jay_s_Atelier



Series: Prototype Seasons [2]
Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Writing Sythesis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:27:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29094975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jay_s_Atelier/pseuds/Jay_s_Atelier
Summary: The world still turns, but the changes of a wish make a kingdom more like a fairy tale. The results of one can still make something of a happy ending for another. Arthur Pendragon takes in the result of Ayaka's wish.
Relationships: Merlin (Fate/Prototype)/Arthur Pendragon | Saber
Series: Prototype Seasons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134665
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	Spring of Camelot

**Author's Note:**

> Big surprise, but I do not own any of the characters or anything in the Fate fandom. My status as a Master in FGO doesn't entitle me to anything. I do, however, own the plot bunny for what I just wrote. You can thank the characters for being voluntold to participate~

Arthur reached once more for his sword as he readied himself for his next opponent. His last enemy a monstrosity that could only barely resemble human life crossed with some animal in all its undead glory had got one good hit in. Their high numbers at this point swarming him that it was hard to have any room to maneuver. The speed and strength of them increasing the more inhuman the undead becomes as if it was adapting the strength and speed of the them and boosted more and more by their creator. As someone who was Manaka's Servant previously, Arthur _knew_ just how powerful she was.

As much as he knew that the limitations she had before were clearly broken somehow due to her time in the Grail.

( _She was supposed to be stopped. This ... this creature she became never should have happened. There was a choice he had to do what was right at the cost of one fifteen year old maiden, the absolute monster that his under that skin had to be stopped. And now she was back._

Worse _._ )

The latest monstrosity appeared in groups readier to swarm him once again. Arthur could not give up. Ayaka was counting on him. He had just got her safe. She had to be safe after this. Just this once. Just... one time, Arthur wanted to succeed. He wanted to keep one person safe. He wanted this time as the knight Arthur to be able to keep the charge he had safe from harm; the young lady that was in need of a protector and personal knight as much as she was in need of an adult. ~~The parent that could keep her safe that she clearly needed.~~ He was going to keep his oath. This time he was going to keep his promise. His last promise.

Arthur prepared himself for another surprise from his enemies. The ones keeping him from his last promise and making the once peaceful place more a deathly battlefield than he ever wanted to see. He braced himself to push into a rush off the ground he was tossed into by the latest barrage to swipe them down, only to blink as the world reshaped itself.

The entire world went **white**...

.

* * *

.

"You know after so many years, you always seem to get in the worst sort of trouble my King. Truly, you are the most valiant trouble maker in all the land to end up in all the center of something like this." A familiar voice voice sang softly, lowly, and with a detachment that Arthur could remember as forced. A voice that should not be here.

That could not be here. 

_(He missed it so terribly his own heart ached as if it were crying out.)_

It had to be an illusion.

"You know you were always right there with me in all that trouble." Arthur returned to the voice behind him; the one he couldn't treat it like it was fake when he wanted it to be _real_. 

"Not all of them." She spoke with such solemnity that Arthur was forced to remember the utter disasters that every battle was without her. Even the one he was just in before he entered this white void of space with a few flowers by his feet, the rest of the space swallowed up by the void of white.

"No," Arthur breathed, remembering just why she would never be in battle by his side again after her death, "No, you weren't." It took all he had in him not to let the ache in his chest and the pressure in his skull allow him to cry. He couldn't do that. Not to her. She didn't like sad feelings. He should be aiming to be happy. Even if this wasn't real, for her. She _was dead_ and if this was the last thing he could give to her, he would make it so. She wouldn't get his grief.

"It really would have been better if I could have been by your side. This time, I can at least do something." Merlin told him. "I can tell you that it's over." 

"Manaka is dead?" Arthur knew Ayaka hated the thought of fighting. She hated the entire war and tried to avoid any killing, but had she finished off the monster that was her opponent when Arthur was taking care of the abominations she commanded to attack the world without care?

"Manaka is no longer within the realm of humans." Merlin told him, which did not confirm that she was dead. ....and with him in this void space... Ayaka might be. 

"Ayaka?" He needed to know he didn't fail this time. That the reason he was dead now, even if he was talking to a Merlin who was either real, or an illusion, taking him to his final resting place, was not because she had died in the encounter with her sister. He _should_ have been there.

"Ayaka?" Merlin muttered, "She is no longer alive as you knew her." 

And Arthur

_co_

_ll_

_ap_

_sed_.

He _failed_.

"How?" Arthur asked weakly to one of the only people he _would_ , or _could_ , allow himself to be weak in the presence beside him. She didn't lie. She may omit things, but she never lied to him. Not when he asked her directly. 

"The last curse she was cured from.. the antidote was too late." If Arthur was not on his knees already, they would have done so now. "Your Ayaka as you knew her won the Grail and made a wish. One that ultimately sealed away a great evil that you would have needed the full power of that creation of mine to defeat. Doing so made her one with the Garden, but it sealed that evil away at the cost of what she used to be." Merlin's words were a bittersweet comfort. So she won in the end even to lose. A victory that was not a victory in Arthur's opinion. 

"The rest of the world is fine now. Well as it ever is in that Age of Man." Hands, cold hands that were familiar and solidly real were on his shoulders, making him look up into the pink eyes he memorized and didn't believe he would ever see again. She was _real_. "When you wake up, you'll be back in Camelot now. It's over now. You don't have to continue anymore fighting." 

It was official. Merlin was real and both of them were dead. She was taking him to heaven now, but there was still something he had to get out of his chest if this was really the last time he saw her. If she was nothing but his personal guide. He wanted to tell her now before he woke up. Most likely without her near him. 

"I wanted to marry you." Arthur looked dead into her eyes. A confession a long time coming. The flustered surprise was one he didn't see often. It was a look he liked to bring out the most when he told her the things he thought of her before when both of them were alive. 

"My King you don't need-" Merlin was trying to stop him, and, normally he would have respected her wishes but this was too important to dismiss, he had to finally tell her before he kept another regret. 

"I was in love with you, I tried to forget it because I wanted the marriage with Guinevere to work out and a man married did not break his word and look to another woman, no matter the personal feelings they had. If I could have objected and married, or if I confessed and married you sooner I would have. You would have been my Queen, should have been my Queen. I don't know if you ever could see me as more than a friend, and to me you are on of those too, my best friend, but that never changed the fact that I fell in love with you too. My wedding vows ended with my death. I'm free now. I can say it finally."

The shocked look on Merlin's face would have been one not many were privileged to. Could even tell you she had such a face, but he knew she could feel a bit of something, no matter how she was in denial of it. He had seen the way she cared about others, seen her have fun and be sad. 

"I love you. It took an entire life and my own death to be able to admit it to you, but it makes sense that I could finally tell you when both of us were dead." Arthur was finally free to tell her now after all. And this... this he could genuinely smile for. It was weathered by the fact that he lost another person he had grown to care for in the end, but he wouldn't let him let this chance pass him by. He was going to be selfish.

One last time.

"My King-" And that would have to go too. He wasn't a King in death.

"Arthur. I died. I'm not a king anymore." A king couldn't tell Merin he was in love with her. 

"Arthur. You aren't, we aren't," there was some absurd hilarity in the fact that he left her without words. She was not rejecting him, she even called him by name like he asked. Like she was just another woman to him being just another man, she sighed and looked like she was trying for a calm she didn't quite succeed in. "Arthur. I brought you here to calm you down. To tell you that you would wake up in Camelot, just not exactly the one we lived in. It's part of the seal." 

"Will you be there?" That's all he really cared about. Right now it was paramount she not disappear again if he woke up. _Not again._

It appeared it was the time when Merlin was the most flustered he would ever remember her becoming. "Everyone you spoke about fondly is there. It's a dream even I didn't think was possible. It's Ayaka's last wish before she-"

In what was becoming a habit of his in this in this white void, Arthur interrupted her. "I won't waste her sacrifice." If there was anything he could do to honor her, since he was going to wake up in Heaven, he could do that for the young woman he watched over, it was to enjoy his afterlife with them all. His one hand not on his sword was gripping one of her own. It was the last promise he could do for all of them.

.

* * *

.

Arthur woke up still holding onto a familiar hand. The face of Merlin had followed him out of the void, the smell of flowers and freshness was still the same. The sounds around him so painfully familiar: the shout of the baker he met whenever he came back from a quest, the cheery voices of the citizens haggling over goods, the ever present sound of knights patrolling and training. It was home.

"You're really here." Arthur gasped out. He hoped she would be here with him out of that white void, but to think she really was. His arms were around her, somehow still mindful of her soft and fluff hair not getting caught in his armor - that was no longer showing any signs from his previous fight, pulling her into a hug. All the genuine feelings of joy that were still subdued in a way rushing to the forefront. She was here! Just as alive as him.

"You know I really don't want to break up this moment, but the rest of us are here too. Let Merlin breath a little." Sir Kay - his brother - was there too. Looking around, instead of just at Merlin he could see so many of the people he missed. It was not just Kay, there was Gawain - his nephew - and his little siblings were there from the dour from work Agravain to Gaeth and Gaheris, Tristain with his harp, Bedivere - who was with him in his last mortal moments before the grail, Percival - who looked like he was just as cheerful as Tristan for once, Galahad with a relieved smile, and Mordred - his son.

His _son_.

Arthur let himself out of his hug with Merlin - still keeping one hand in hers as he couldn't let her go now - and walked straight over to him, Merlin pulled along looking curious at the hand holding her to the bemused knights around them, and pulled Mordred into his own hug. 

"I don't care what Heaven this is, but none of you are allowed to disappear on me again. Not even to some second death." Arthur declared to those he held closest to. He didn't want to be king again, but this.. this he could and would declare as the one order above all. 

"I don't believe Merlin was able to finish explaining everything to you, uncle." Agravain could understand it, they all did die and Merlin grabbed hold of his uncle's arm as soon as he appeared mid-swing of his sword included. Her reaction time was impeccable when she pulled him into a waking dream to " _Calm him down._ " she had explained before focusing on him. "This is a second chance for us all. Merlin and the rest of us were imprinted the information that we would be a part of keeping a Seal for someone named Manaka and the Beast of hers from the rest of the world. We will hold and last as long as the Seal holds. The Spring Kingdom - the seal of renewal and birth - is Camelot." He continued on when he noticed his kingly uncle listening.

"It's why it looks like Merlin went wild." Kay added dryly, motioning to the obvious floral additions to the castle and town.

Arthur finally looked around at his brother's prompting. There were flowers on almost ever few feet. One couldn't walk without running into a variety of colors to the side of the paths to on top of the buildings to twined within the castle walls as if they were meant to be there. All of them delicate and colorful with butterflies free floating like small clouds that even blended in well enough with the petals that danced with every strong breeze that you couldn't almost distinguish one from the other even with _Arthur's_ sight. Flowers could be seen budding on trees known to bear fruit as well. 

Everything smelled freshly of flowers, looking over at Merlin, Arthur couldn't say he minded. "Is there anything else I may have missed?" Mordred seemed content to just lean into his embrace.

Gawain spoke up next, "There are no more of the nobles we found difficult to work with here. Just the ones we know loyal to us as fellow knights." As his heir, Gawain would have been expected to know those other nobles well, so if he concluded they were gone, they were _gone_. 

"It's not sad at all to live in a place of an eternal spring." Tristan opinioned. 

"We even have the better Queen this time!" Mordred piped up from his place. "Guinevere's mot here and neither is Lancelot, so it's fine. The magic said Merlin was Queen anyway." Mordred sounded _so_ smug at that.

"Merlin?" Arthur wasn't going to hope, but she wasn't speaking. She wasn't denying it. When he told her he would have had her his Queen if he could, he didn't believe it would be real this soon, but that didn't mean he wouldn't court her properly. Arthur wasn't sure this wasn't actually heaven for all they were acting as a living shield to keep Manaka and her evil sealed. 

"Don't be stupid this time you two. This King and Queen is much better than before." Kay ordered the both of them, Arthur was amused to note. Of course, his brother wouldn't mind ordering around his little brother and his Queen.

.

* * *

.

"I'm sorry!" Another familiar voice shouted as soon as his family and fellow inner circle of knights. But... it couldn't be? Then again, today was a day of revivals.

Ayaka was there. In robes that looked like landscapes that - to his eyes seemed to be _shifting_ as if it were real, there were even some animals he could spot, small as they were - unlike her uniform that Arthur last saw her in. She was seen by the others too what with the way they all aside from Merlin were immediately on guard. And Merlin... appeared to just be staring at Ayaka as if she just found an extra piece to a puzzle.

Ayaka appeared to be staring right back at Merlin with her own sort of wonder, not even the kind that most people who see Merlin for the first time have from what Arthur could remember. "She really likes you. You make it feel... better, soothing." Ayaka said in astonishment. While Arthur had no idea who this mysterious 'she' was, it appeared Merlin did. Did and just found a surprise that she couldn't have predicted coming.

"Ayaka, who is 'she'?" Arthur asked, he may have had a few hours talking with the others as they compared this Camelot to the old one and found out things that the others knew before their deaths - or not death in Merlin's case and that actually sounded _worse_ no matter how glad Arthur was relieved she didn't die, but he would never object to seeing here in Camelot with them too. She was here, after all; it meant he didn't fail her like he believed he did. Another part of him relaxed at that. Merlin said she was gone, but that's not right. Merlin said she was cost what she used to be, and he might not be a mage, but his instincts were telling him that Ayaka wasn't just the school girl and unwilling witch any longer. She was _different_ now.

Ayaka finally peeled her eyes away from Merlin and anything else that was catching them both in rapt attention and turned to him. "Gaia. She... I made a wish. I didn't know it at the time, but the grail... it reads the person who is the winner and uses their imagination to make the winner's wish a reality. I didn't know it was reading mine. I didn't know this would happen." 

It was like she was trying to still reason it out to herself as much as she was him. Ayaka really was a normal girl for all intents and purposes until the Holy Grail War. "Didn't know what would happen?" Arthur spoke softer as if to a frightened survivor, which Ayaka was, that was about to spook. The rest of the knights relaxed while the two were talking.

"I... my fairy tales were brought to life. My sister is Sealed away like a storybook villain, people are now in kingdoms that are pillars for the seal without their asking - I have to tell them why, and I'm not just Ayaka anymore. I... I'm Mother Nature. Gaia is in my head and a part of me. She's in my head too." Ayaka sounded both thrilled and upset about that. "She likes Merlin." Ayaka continued absentmindedly like she was still in some shock, which brought out a few snickers from his knights

Arthur, free from the contact he had earlier, moved in front of her and put one hand on her head like she was a child again. "Take it all one step at a time, Ayaka. From what I understand this will be our new normal for a long time now."

"Yes, Father." Arthur didn't know who was more surprised that she said that, but ... it wasn't a bad title.

"You have another child we didn't know about Arthur? You should have told us you decided to adopt." Kay muttered dryly.

"I'm the eldest one, the big brother, you understand." Mordred was very quick to point out. "I was born first." 


End file.
